Into the Sea of Stars
Read Into the Sea of Stars Online
Authors: William R. Forstchen
Tags: #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #General
Into The Sea Of Stars
William R.
Forstchen
A Del
Rey
Book
BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK
Published by
Ballantine
Books
Copyright © 1986 by William R.
Forstchen
ISBN 0-345-32426-9
First Edition: October 1986
Cover Art by Don Dixon
For Greg in thanks for your friendship and a certain introduction...
Frank and the advice that was so often needed, and
Rus
, the finest historian of them all!
I
t was a time of high adventure; an age when men and
women could seize destiny and shape it to their will. Can
our generation again breed such heroes? I think not, for a golden age of exploration comes but rarely to a race,
and ours is now lost forever. They were of the same mold
as Alexander at the Asian Gate and Caesar at the Rubicon.
Look to the choices that lay before them, a thousand years ago in the darkness of the twenty-first century. The world beneath them was poised for the madness of ther
monuclear night; a madness that threatened to reach out
to the Earth's thousand colonies. And with that madness
came the calling—the calling from Old America, and Eu
rope, and the vast reaches of the Asian giants.
A calling for the children to return, to arm themselves, and to join
in the war of the parent states.
A war that would engulf
mankind and create another dark age, from which we have
so recently emerged.
But the colonies were no longer of Earth. They were
the new children, those who beheld a new horizon and could look beyond the parochial
squabblings
below.
And one day they were gone. Pointing their colonies into the unknown, they abandoned Earth forever. Using
plasma drives, ion thrusters, matter/antimatter engines,
thermonuclear pulse propulsion, and even solar sails, the
colonies broke the bonds and headed off into the un
known—looking for freedom and an escape. Led by such
legendary men as
Ikawa
Kurosawa,
Vasiliy
Renikoff
, and
Franklin Smith, the colonies abandoned the parent world
to its madness. And then the War came.
Where are they now? What great wonders have these
visionaries of the past created, unhindered by the Holocaust War of the twenty-first century and the chaos that followed? Will we ever know the fate of the colonies
missing for a thousand years?
From a rejected manuscript by Dr. Ian
Lacklin
, Missing Colonies
and the Heroic Figure in History.
"M
r. Hansin, are you with us, or are you again pon
dering the earthly delights awaiting you in the women's
dormitory?" In disgust Ian
Lacklin
collapsed into his chair
and awaited the response.
"Ah, oh yes, I fully agree with you, Dr.
Lacklin
. Of
course, you're absolutely right."
An undercurrent of snickers ran through the stuffy,
overcrowded room. Ian stared them down and was greeted
with forced looks of attentiveness.
Idiots.
Graduate students, indeed. Every semester he
was lectured by the dean that this year's was the best
crop yet, survivors of a lengthy winnowing process. The
dean made
Kutzburg
sound like Nouveau Harvard instead
of the Provincial University's worst campus, one that ca
tered to ozone-head athletes and near-morons who had failed entry in every other system and, therefore, would become educators.
"Then, Mr. Hansin, perhaps you could enlighten us all
as to the ramifications of the
Geosync
Positions Com
munications Treaty of 2031 and how it was later cited by
Beaulieu as the underlying cause of the Second South
American Crisis of 2038."
"Say, Dr.
Lacklin
, was that in our readings?"
"By God, man, yes!"
In exasperation Ian rose up to
his full five-and-a-half-foot height and pointed a stubby
finger at Hansin.
"Can't you see how important this was? With the
crowding of the
geosync
points in the early part of the
twenty-first century came the increasing agitation by
the equatorial countries for control not only of the atmos
phere above them but of the
geosync
positions, as well.
Out of that came the abortive attempt to take
Powersat
23 from the Sino-Japanese Energy Consortium, which in turn placed in jeopardy the Skyhook construction project in Malaysia. Can't you see how important that is to your life today?"
Blank stares greeted him.
An ocean of blank stares.
"This room is a vacuum!" Ian shouted, waving his
short, pudgy arms. "I know this course is required, I know
you were all dragged in here kicking and screaming, but,
by God, it's required for a reason.
"But, of course, you cretins already know that when you are history teachers yourselves, instructions in
throwing a ball through a hoop will be far more important
than this." Ian realized that his sarcasm was lost on that
crowd, but with a note of pleading in his voice he valiantly
tried to push ahead. "Don't you realize that you should
also be able to teach your students about history, as well?
Can't you see that?"
"Sure, Doc.
We see that, but
it's
Friday, and the shuttle
tram's leaving for
Bostem
in half an hour."
"Ah, a visit to the fleshpots of
Bostem
is more impor
tant to you than this, is that it, Mr. Hansin? And you,
too, Mr. Roy?"
Silence.
"Well, Mr. Roy, don't sit there slack-jawed and drool
ing, answer me."
"Doc, that's an interesting point, and most difficult to answer."
lan's
cherubic face turned crimson. "Idiots, get out, just get out of here." His voice cracked on a high note, as it always did when he got excited. "Just get out!"
The mindless herd of thirty-odd students exploded into
action and stampeded past him for the doorway.
"Wait, wait a minute, your reading assignment for next
week..." But they were already gone, the corridor ech
oing with the sounds of their
cattlelike
trampling and muted
comments about
Lacklin's
heritage and physiological
shortcomings.
Another brilliant lecture wasted. Mumbling obscure
Old American obscenities, he returned to his desk and started to shuffle a pile of notes into his briefcase. Eigh
teen years! Eighteen years of trying to give to an uncaring
mob a brief glimpse of the joys to be found in history.
There was an occasional pearl to be found, but for most
of them, he was "
Lackless
Lacklin
," master of "Enrichment Requirement Number 3: Sputnik to Armageddon—
a History of the First Space Era."
"Excuse me, Dr.
Lacklin
."
"Yes, yes, what is it?" He looked up from his desk. "What is it, Shelley, why weren't you sucked into the vortex of that mob?"
"You were about to give an assignment?"
He looked at her appraisingly, the pearl of the semester,
a gangly six-foot, twenty-one-year old; suffering from a bad case of acne and allegedly responsible to him as a
research assistant—assigned by the dean, no doubt, as
a practical joke. As a graduate student she was adequate, but she constantly hung around his office looking for
sophomoric debates on the real meaning of Lock's the
ories of space sociology or other such foolishness.
"Do we have an assignment in Beaulieu's book?" she asked eagerly.
"No doubt, you've already finished it?"
"Of course, but I wanted to be ready for Monday's
class. I can review it over the weekend."
"Don't worry about it now, why don't you just go along
with the others."
"Here, let me help you back to the office with that."
Before he could object, Shelley picked up the model of
the
Schuder
space colony and started for the door.
"Damn it, look out!"
But it was too late. She brushed against the doorway,
knocking the antennae structure off.
"Oh, Dr.
Lacklin
, I'm sorry, I—"
"Never mind, Miss Walker, just take it down to the office."
With a sigh of despair he picked up the broken plastic
and followed after her. It had taken him the better part
of a weekend to construct the three-foot-long model of a
colony that had once been home to fifty thousand people.
As they made their way down the dimly lit corridors
to
lan's
subterranean office, Shelley chattered on about a paper she was writing for The Journal of Space Antiq
uities, and Dr.
Lacklin
occasionally grunted noncommit
tally, but his thoughts were already light-years away.
A new copy of the journal had just come that morning, with a lengthy article by Beaulieu concerning the recently
discovered ruins of the colony on Mars. The site was one
of the biggest finds of the decade and was revealing a
wealth of artifacts on early twenty-first-century technol
ogy. The article would provide an excellent weekend's
entertainment away from students, the school,
the
world—
in fact, an escape from all reality.
Ian was so wrapped in happy thoughts of escape that he didn't notice Shelley had stopped, and Ian crashed right into her. The
Schuder
model tumbled to the floor
and fractured into fragments that went spinning out in every direction.
"Uh-oh," Shelley whispered.
"Damn it, Shelley, why can't you
... ?"
Ian looked past
her and saw the towering figure standing by the doorway
to his office.
"It's Chancellor Cushman," Shelley whispered fear
fully.
The figure started to move toward them. "Dr.
Lacklin
,
my good man," the Chancellor's voice boomed like a can
non report, "
just
the person I was looking for."
Striding forward, hand outstretched, he stepped on
broken fragments of the model, grinding them to powder.
Grabbing Ian's shoulder, the Chancellor smiled his sin
ister toothy grin, which more often than not was the opening signal for a budget cut or an increase in one's teaching
load.
He turned to Shelley with that same grin, but there was a barely concealed disdain about him as he was forced
to address a student. "My charming young miss, would
you be
so
kind as to excuse the good doctor and me."
Before the Chancellor had finished speaking, Shelley
was backing away, mumbling something about having to
wash her hair; she was gone, leaving Ian to his fate.
Ian followed the Chancellor down the corridor into the
dusty, cluttered closet that was
lan's
office. There the
Chancellor released his numbing grip on
lan's
shoulder. He ran his finger along a bookcase and snorted with dis
dain when the digit came up black with two decades'
worth of dust. Walking around to
lan's
desk, the Chan
cellor first carefully examined the chair as if expecting it to be booby-trapped, and then, barely satisfied, he low
ered his towering form while pointing Ian to the visitor's
chair on the other side of the desk.
"You know, Ian," his voice boomed, filling the tiny
room, "I never could see the purpose of keeping your
history program alive. Such things are a waste, in my mind." He smiled.
It's termination! Ian thought. My God, what will I do?
"But the Provincial Government of New America," the
Chancellor continued, "decreed in the educational charter
to this institution that we are to, quote, 'train functioning citizens who shall fit into the framework of our society and appreciate the traditions of our new Federated Re
public,' unquote. In other words, my man, we are to train
effective cogs for the wheels of the administration. And one of the teeth in that cog must be an understanding of history. Do you agree?"
Maybe it's not termination! "Of course,
your
Excel
lency, of course." His voice cracked.
"I knew you would agree, my good man. Of course, I've always felt that such courses as File Management or
Interoffice Communications were far more valuable than
your digging up the ancient past, but this is an institute
of higher learning so we must be tolerant of minor ec
centricities, mustn't we?"
"Of course."
"Tell me, Ian, how many people staff your department now?"
"I'm the only one. Don't you remember you cut the budget last year, eliminating Mr.
Lelezi
?"
"Ah, yes. Mr.
Lelezi
. He taught the history of the Holocaust War and the Second Dark Age?"
"Yes,
your
Excellency."
"The taped lectures we've made of him are an adequate
replacement, are they not? Save us a significant sum,
don't they?"
It would be termination!
"Tell me, Ian, do we have tapes of your lectures on
file?"
Ian could only nod. The Chancellor had instituted that
little trick five years back. The Board of Regents loved
it, and the Chancellor was now hailed as a bold new in
novator in education.
"Good, Dr.
Lacklin
, very good indeed.
Would you be so kind as to write up a study guide for your course, in
triplicate, and be sure to use the proper
forms.
I want it
in my office first thing Monday morning."
The room started to spin. Ian felt as if he
were
looking -
up from the bottom of a deep, deep well, and the only
thing he could see at the end of the shaft was the Chan
cellor's wolfish grin.
"Does this mean," Ian asked weakly, trying to conceal
the wheedling tone in his voice, "that my position is to
be automated?"
"Well, my good man"—the Chancellor laughed, ob
viously delighting in this little diversion—"don't be so
pale and glum. You don't want to spend the rest of your
life in a classroom, now do you?"
"But history is my life, it's everything."
The Chancellor's grin suddenly became more sinister.
"We've other plans for you."
"Other plans?"
"Come now, Ian, you now as well as I do that this
noble institution supports its staff and encourages it to broaden the field of knowledge through publication. I've been checking on you, my man—in eighteen years of
teaching, you've never been published."
"There is my book, you know!
Missing Colonies and
the Heroic Figure in History."
"How many rejections have you had on that?"
Ian was silent.
"But that's not what I'm talking about. There are other
forms of writing, take grants, for instance."
He wants me as a grant writer! Endless forms to fill out. I'll go mad, Ian thought. Digging the sands of Mars
would be better. Perhaps Beaulieu would take me on as an assistant. But his stomach turned somersaults at the
mere thought of space travel and weightlessness.
"You have some rather good experience with grants, my man. In fact, that's the reason for this friendly chat of ours. It's your grant, Ian. I just got a call from the
Minister of Education, who has a brother in the Deep
Space Exploration and Surveying Department. I'm talking about your grant proposal."